


well i've never been to heaven (but i've been to oklahoma)

by august_songs



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Repression, Rule 63, Slow Burn, harold theyre lesbians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-09-02 02:46:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16778074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/august_songs/pseuds/august_songs
Summary: Benny doesn’t know how anyone in here’s breathing with how gorgeous Brock is, working for every inch of the bar. Not in a weird way; she’s just sucking all the air out of the room, all the light. Benny wants to. God. She wants to — she doesn’t know what.





	1. day 1

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: its fiction sis  
> title from never been to spain by waylon jennings
> 
> please let me know what you think!

Really, Benny didn’t know what she expected. It’s August, so not like the dead of winter or anything, and still the midwestern skies were too windy for her plane to take off. And by the time it’s rescheduled, and her connection is rerouted through Atlanta, and her luggage takes about ten years to come off the carousel, she has like 45 minutes to get from the airport to school to the baseball diamond. Not like she had, you know, four years’ worth of unpacking to do or anything. Not like the first practice of the entire year matters.

  
So she goes 15 over the speed limit to get there, drops her bags at what could be freshman early check-in while the maroon-shirted people nod encouragingly, and then sprints over to what the map advertised as the baseball center. And of course, by then she has like six minutes until practice is scheduled to start.

Real classy, Benintendi. Nice moves there.

Not counting the faded photos of ballplayers plastered to the walls, there's only one other person in the lobby area of the clubhouse. She’s pale and blonde and tall, scary tall, enough to make Benny widen her eyes quickly and wonder if this is what all the collegiate baseballers are like. She is also both holding a sign saying “AGGIE BASEBALL REP” and wearing giant headphones, and Benny swears she can hear the rap from across the room, which is not the best possible situation with four and a half minutes to go until practice begins. But she has to try, right? So she tucks her duffel bag behind her back and shuffles up to the beanpole girl.

“Yo, do you know where the intro baseball practice is today?” No reaction. But her watch says she’s got less than four now, so she breathes and taps the girl’s shoulder, repeats the question.

Beanpole spins around so fast she almost elbows Benny in the face. “Oh, baseball?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Um. If you’re new we’re doing intros and maxes upstairs. Just climb up the back and look around.” The headphones slip back on, a royal dismissal.

Nearly down to three minutes now. Benny books it for the stairs at the back, climbing so fast she almost bowls over a short ginger girl in a SUNS OUT GUNS OUT bro tank. She’s damn lucky everyone’s chatting beforehand — it’s obvious once she gets upstairs where the practice is, in this big airy room on the left. With two to go, she creaks open the door (almost nobody turns to look, which is a nice surprise) and slides down to the ground next to a girl whose dark ponytail reaches halfway down her back. There. Take that, wind god and Atlanta airport god and luggage carousel god.  


The girls are sitting bunched up in little groups, laughing, and Benny suddenly misses Caroline and Alicia and her old teammates so bad it hurts, right in her throat. Assistant Coach Margaret, who’d done all the recruiting stuff with her, gives her a cool nod. God, thank fuck she wasn’t late.

It’s 2:59 when Beanpole and bro tank girl come in, bumping shoulders. They get a nod from Margaret, a smile from the head coach.

“Chris, Vaz, we got everyone?” the head coach — Cora, she’s almost sure — asks.

Beanpole shoots Cora a quick thumbs up. “Yep. She was the last one.” She nods at Benny, and here come the awkward stares from her new teammates. Benny wills the blush to die down, raises a hand in a slight wave of acknowledgement. 

“Chris got everyone, and I got Chris,” grins the bro-tank girl, who must be Vaz.

The ponytailed girl next to Benny reaches back to punch Vaz in the leg, and then Vaz goes, “DP if you don’t cut it out I swear—“ and then the whole thing sort of devolves into laughing chaos, and ends only when Cora bangs lightly on the wall. Vaz and Chris end up sitting down right behind Benny as Cora calls up a buff, snapbacked ginger girl to the front of the room.

“Yo,” ginger begins. “I’m Brock Holt, junior, co-captain of Aggie baseball. AC — ” (and she nods to Coach Cora, this must be the nickname) — “asked me to run some introductions. And after months of intensive research, I am excited to announce that I have found the most interesting icebreaker out there, and we’re… not gonna play it. Pedey, in their infinite wisdom, vetoed Baseball Twister.” There’s some laughs, some groans — Brock must be the fun captain. The short buff buzzcut chick next to her nods smugly, and that must be Pedey. Co-captain?

“Instead, we’re all gonna get into a circle,” Brock continues, smiling a little, “and you’re gonna say your name, and year, and position, and your favorite song, and the most overrated song you’ve heard recently, that one popular song you just hated.”  
“And then Brock’ll sing ‘em all while we max,” this girl with big eyeliner and an afro calls out from the back. Real laughter now: Brock throws her head back, even AC’s chuckling.

“Sorry, Jackie, not today. I’mma save that for a special occasion,” Brock drawls, nice and easy. She was laughing with everyone, and now she’s grinning, and — God — her whole face has opened up, and her eyes are crinkled and something seems right about it to Benny. Like this is how she’s supposed to be, open and grinning, a little snarky twinkle in her eye. And Benny doesn’t normally notice this stuff, has never seen anyone’s eyes twinkle before, but Brock is lit up and at ease and her eyes are just… on.

“But for now, let’s go,” Brock says, and drops down, slapping her thighs. “Let’s go! Circle time.”  
It turns out Benny’s close-to-the-door spot is actually directly in the middle of these upperclassman buddies, as she discovers when Chris and Vaz squeeze in next to DP. She tries to scoot out of the way, and ends up in between a big beefy girl and the joking girl (Jack?) from before, and directly across from Brock.

There’s another scuffle. Brock is laughing with that energized open face again when she offers to start. “Well, you all know this now,” she says. “Brock Holt, junior, second base and short. Favorite song is Dance Her Home, Cody Johnson. No contest.” Chris snorts loudly across the circle, and Brock gives her an unashamed eyebrow raise. “And you all can shush about it. Most overrated is that drunk Post Malone song, I had no clue what was going on.”

The big girl next to Benny snorts and nods in agreement, and one of the girls laughs “Hey! Don’t diss Posty!” and the whole thing almost devolves again before the other captain hushes people and Brock laughs everyone into quiet again. God, Benny loves hearing the laughter. 

There’s like 30 of them here, and the game continues around for a bit — Vaz’s full name is Christa Vazquez, and DP is Daelyn Price, and on Price’s other side is Evo (“Nasty Nat,” Price hoots before she introduces herself.) And that’s most of the starting pitchers. God, Benny wouldn’t want to bat against this squad.

They’re about to get through that friend group when Vaz interjects “shopping season, girls!” and Chris glares at her so she clarifies, “Sale and Price out there, throwin’ filthy.” The room lights up again, Price blushes and knocks Vaz with her leg, and Brock guffaws again,again, loud and joyful. Jack slaps Vaz on the back, and Vaz laughs. “Jackie knows what’s up.”

And then they’re to her, and this team is already more cohesive than her four-years-together high school squad, and she wants in, like, now o’clock. She hopes her face isn’t red yet.

“Andrea — Andy — Benintendi. but call me Benny. Freshman, outfield.” Everyone’s looking. She gnaws her lip, wishes she had her chapstick on her. “Fave song. I guess I Love This Life, LOCASH.”

And Brock looks at her for the first time and grins, “My kinda girl.” 

“Brock’s just happy cause someone else likes her bad pop country,” Jackie stage-whispers to her.

“Yeah, what’s it to you, Jackie?” And Brock laughs again, and Benny might just be addicted. “But we gotta keep moving! Benny! Least fave. Come on, what gets you riled up?” And she’s stuck — was gonna say Malone too, but that’d be a suck-up copycat move, and Brock is still looking at her, face all angles, eyes just sharpness, big and piercing right through Benny’s conviction, and she can’t (can’t can’t can’t) look away.

“I - I don’t have much beef with popular music,” she says, to the players but mostly to Brock, and the room groans at the cop-out, and Brock is still looking at her, and she must be tomato fucking red at this point. “Really, I’m chill. I like most stuff.”

Brock snorts and nods. “Alright, Andybenny.” That’s a new one. “We’ll just have to find you a song you really hate.” And then Brock’s eyes are off hers, and she can breathe again.

The game moves over to the big dark-haired girl, Michelle, who’s first base and likes pop country and has the prettiest drawl Benny’s ever heard. There’s a few more freshman on this side — Xandra looks like a supermodel; Swi is old friends with Mookie, who is really very sweet for, like, the top baseball recruit in their region. All in all, it takes them way longer than it should to get back around to Pedey, the other captain, who makes a jokey comment about this being the loosest the schedule will be all year.

Brock keeps laughing, but doesn’t look at her again for the rest of the circle, and she’s stuck between relief and disappointment.

And then AC coughs, and the circle over and the season is begun. She — god, she talks like no coach Benny’s ever had before. It’s her first year here, but half the girls already seem to know her, and she starts with expectations. Control the controllables, she says, and eat well, and sleep. We’re one-hundred-percent in for this season. We start earning our trophies right — now. Individual goals and follow throughs.

  
“Let’s do some damage,” AC says, and it is dead silent for the first time all practice. A beat. Another. “Mags, take it away.”

Mags — assistant coach Maggie, nobody has time for any more than 2 syllables here — takes over then, walks them over to the weights. “We’re gonna start with one rep maxes. Deadlift, squat, bench, max jump. Then we’ll do conditioning.” Brock and Pedey brandish clipboards, and AC is squinting at an iPad of spreadsheets.

Benny falls in with the other freshmen, and — holy shit. Xandra, X, squats like an absolute beast. She can’t be more than 150 pounds but she’s moving 200 on the squat rack. Benny goes through a couple sets on the squat, hits a non-embarrassing max right above her high school one, and then moves over to the bench.

She’s going through the warmups, pounding out like ten repetitions with just the bar be before Mookie, who’s spotting, taps her hand. “Ain’t heavy enough for you to flex yet, Benny. If this isn’t your max?”

And Benny knows she’s small, has a lot of catching up to do before her quads look like michelle’s or her shoulders look like Brock’s. But she can at least try to put up numbers that aren’t embarrassing, and Brock is leaning against the wall with her max clipboard, and her half-smile, and suddenly Benny needs to see her laugh again, open face and glowing eyes.

X kills it, of course, hits 140 easy. And she’s been warming up a little behind X, but Brock’s eyes are brushing over her and she hit’s the stupid switch for a minute and nods X to keep the plates on, adds cookies to bring it up to 145, lies down. Brock is standing there, still, gaze flicking all over the room and then down to Benny again, and she steps off the wall

“Andybenny, you’re gonna want to widen your grip. This shit’s slippery. Mook, keep an eye on their form.” And her fingers reach out, chipped orange nail polish, and curl warm over Benny’s and push her left hand out. “There you go.”

But now Brock’s watching her again, so she looks up and rolls her wrists and presses the bar up slowly. The lift’s not that crazy, she’s done 135 before, and that was without warm captains touching her hands before. The bar comes down controlled to the chest tap— the wide grip is helping, damn Brock for being right — and then up, a few inches, a few more— 

“C’mon, Benny,” says Mookie

“Breathe,” says Brock, or maybe Benny is making things up, but she exhales and flexes and pushes up another three inches — four— to her breaking point here we go. Final push — they’re watching, she’s watching, and shit this hurts but then— boom, baby! — she’s through the breaking point and up and elbows straight and Benny has a new bench max.

Brock doesn’t laugh. But she smiles face open, makes eye contact and gives Benny a fist bump, so that’s almost as good.

And then she turns away and bumps Pedey over some numbers shit, so Benny gets the rest of her shit done pretty fast. They run, until Benny’s soaked through her shirt and X abandons it for a scrappy sports bra, and they jump, which always makes Benny feel vaguely stupid, and they deadlift.

When the rookies are done, the upperclassmen are still finishing up, so Benny and X and Mookie have a little time to hang around and grab some water. Mook has the funniest story about their mascot two years ago, the guy got smashed and passed out on the field, and so they’re all in hysterics when the uppers switch for their last station. The mascot thing is so purely dumb-funny Benny misses when Brock and Pedey and Nunie come over to bench press. But she doesn’t miss theyr numbers — X looks over with wide eyes, and then Mook is looking, and for smallish infielders these girls re fucking ripped. Brock and Nunie are down to sports bras, and Pedey’s quads are obnoxiously prominent for someone not even doing a leg workout. They haven’t even maxed yet and Brock is moving 135, head tipped back with that half-smile, grunting basely every rep. Pedey’’s — jesus, Pedey’s warming up with 140. 

They start really piling on the plates for the max soon, going for their last max of the cycle. Pedey has sweat clinging to every hair of her buzz cut, and Nunie does a little shimmy when she’s done, and Brock slides onto the bench and Benny is so glad she’s not alone in staring, just a bit. The junior captain is glistening with sweat, eyebrows tight, and flexing out of her bra in a way that would be obnoxious if she wasn’t moving so much weight. Her mouth has dropped a little open now, and her eyes are squeezed thin with focus, and Benny doesn’t know how anyone in here’s breathing with how gorgeous she is, working for every inch of the bar. Not in a weird way; she’s just sucking all the air out of the room, all the light. Benny wants to. God. She wants to — she doesn’t know what.

And then it’s over. Brock was basically the last one to max, and everyone’s breathing hard so AC brings it in and they break it down, and Benny cannot wait to go fucking crash.

“Hey, Wait up!” AC is gesturing loosely to the fish, and she and X and Mookie and the other girls oblige their way back to the mat. The captains are still there too, a couple of the starters from earlier. “As athletes, we get some freedom in our living situations. A lot of our players choose to room together even later on in their careers, but we have a tradition right now— just to get you into the team culture, newbies and upperclassmen room together for the first semester. Bigs and Littles.” She reads off a list in her notebook, quick. “Xandra with Ricki Porcello. Mookie and Swi, y’all wanted an exemption, you’re with Michelle Moreland. Andrea — sorry, Benny — with Brock Holt.” 

X gives her a shove and a “Ooh, Captain, okay!” before going off with this pretty skinny pitcher, Ricki. And then everyone’s gone except Brock, who is looking at her sharp again.

“Welcome to the squad,” Brock says with that little half-smile.

———-

It turns out that Benny totally dropped her stuff at the completely wrong place in her rush to make practice on time, and she’s got to go beg admin to let her have her freaking bags before she can go back to the dorm with Brock. They’re waiting around a little, and she’s getting a little pissed off and a little tired because she’s going on hour fifteen on her feet, and dragging Brock all over the A&M campus, and just making a huge mess of things. Brock had to sweet-talk the people to even let her get to this point.

Well, you’re sure a teammate they can’t lose now. Really making yourself likable here. 

“You’re gonna want to initial again here,” the lady at the front desk says, and Benny shoots Brock what she hopes is an apologetic enough look, and initials again, flips through the paperwork and gives it back. God, these people really can’t manage her doing anything out of order.

“Sorry, man,” she mumbles to Brock, when they finally let her at her bags, and its’s like 7:30 and they’ve already wasted an hour wrestling with the bags. “If you have some… some upperclassmen thing you want to do or plans or whatever, I can finish up with this and the dorm and whatever.” Because really — first she gets stuck hanging out with some random rookie for a semester, and then the rookie turns out to be a dumbass? Benny’d be pissed off herself. Brock’s barely even smiling any more, just blinking slow and even, eyes flicking around the room — to the woman, the luggage pile, Benny’s hands spread around her bag handles. (Yeah, she overpacks. So what. Sue her.)

“Hey. Don’t worry about it, Benny. My plans are you.” Brock raises her eyebrows in what Benny doesn’t realize is a question until it’s too late, and Brock is already reaching down to grab two of her suitcases. And — there’s that smirk back, her eyes a little wider. “Let’s go.”

It’s a little embarrassing, but Brock shrugs off Benny’s apologetic ‘you don’t have to’s, and so Benny (guilty, guilty for not being guilty) lets it go before they even get to their room. They’re third floor, right in the corner, a couple of okay window views, and it’s with a sigh of relief that Brock sets down Benny’s suitcases. And there’s another awkward thanks, another awkward brush-off, and then Brock plops down on her own bed and throws her snapback on the bedpost and tilts her head at Benny. 

“You really never learned how to pack light, huh?” 

“Nope. Call me a maximalist or whatever. I don’t know if im even gonna get to wear half of this stuff with the weather being how it is, though,” Beny says. Lightens the air a little bit, sits down on her own bed. She has really an hour of unpacking minimum to do, and they have morning practice tomorrow, but she honestly can’t bring herself to care.

“Oh, this is nothing. Wait till all the idiots overload the AC when school starts up properly and we’re stuck trying to sleep in 105-and-humid.” Brock grins, and Benny widens her eyes. 

“Don’t even start, man. I’m from Ohio, it’s bad but not normally this fucking crazy.” It’s 93 and the sun’s not even down and she’d probably be asleep on a good night by now in Cincy.

“Gotta thin your blood a little bit. I’m from Fort Worth, so this is almost chilly now for me.” A little laugh. “Seriously, you wanna take first shower or change before we unpack or something?” Brock says.

“Could I? That’d be awesome.” And of course Brock’s got to be this damn nice, awkward but just so fucking… chivalrous, getting her suitcases, letting her go first. Benny reaches over for the blue suitcase onto the bed, starts to rummage around. All her normal fuzzy pajamas will, like, actually suffocate her. Is it weird to sleep naked? It’s definitely weird to sleep naked. She excavates some soft shorts and a crop top finally. “Lifting today… I just got so gross maxing, even with the AC.”

“Yeah, it’s always pretty sweaty. I hope you brought a lot of shorts — my first year I packed like three pairs, and didn’t figure out how to do laundry for like a month. I was the greasiest bitch. The seniors had to stage an intervention, GoFundMe some detergent, deodorant. Lots of deodorant” They both laugh, and Brock’s face is softer and more relaxed here than it is at practice, but her laugh still looks like the sky opening up. Benny is looking at Brock, cause it’d be weird not to, and Brock comes out of her laugh a bit and makes this hilariously awkward eye contact, and they’re both quiet for a second. And then Brock’s eyebrows raise unexpected, and her lips quirk up, and it sets Benny off again, giggling bent over her suit case. Laughing like this — this feels right too.

“I wasn’t joking, man, I was — am — the most unfortunately sweaty person out here.” And Brock starts to tug at her own shirt, up and over her head nice and easy, reaches for her shorts.

And it’s normal and cool and fine, but Brock’s face is still resting all angles and soft lines, still looks like you feel coming out of a good sermon at church, and her bra really is pretty soaked with sweat, and suddenly Benny needs to be not in the room. The athlete dorms are actually pretty nice, only four to a bathroom, and Benny grabs the clothes and her cosmetics stuff and she goes to shower.

The water is warm, and it takes Benny a moment to realize it’s probably mostly because it’s frying outside for four triple-digit months. But it feels good and the perk of being an over-packers is she has a full thing of her favorite shampoo and conditioner and all her skin care stuff, and she’s tired okay, so she lets herself take her time. Soaking in the warmth, muscles relaxing, and then she checks her watch and it’s been like 20 minutes and shit, these long showers are probably considered horrifically rude in college. She rushes through the rest, stumbles out and brushes her teeth and does her whole wipe-exfoliate-wash-toner-moisturizer thing, throws on the top and shorts and a towel for her hair.

Brock’s in a big Aggie Football t-shirt and a snapback, lounging on her bed on her phone when Benny drips back into the room, gives her a lazy once-over when she’s back. 

“You wanna?” A head-jerk to the suitcases, one exploded across the foot of Benny’s bed, three others laying around ready to mess everything up. Benny groans.

“It’s gonna be even more of a chore in the morning, right?” God, she wants to sleep. She has an old man brain for this thing — sleeps obnoxiously long, nine or ten hours a night if she can get it.

“Yeah, probably,” Brock rolls on her side and swings her legs over the edge of the bed. Benny groans again

“Man, I’ve been up since, like, five in the A.M.”

“On the upside, I can give you a hand tonight. I am not a morning person, I’m just warning you now.” Brock raises her eyebrows again, smirks a little. “And it looks like you need it.”

“Hey, some of us remember to pack all the clothes we need — don’t blame me cause you’re jealous.” Maybe a little harsh, but Brock laughs again, so it’s all good.

“Not like you’re gonna be able to find them at ass o’clock tomorrow if you don’t unpack.” And that was a good one — Benny laughs back, and melodramatically rolls herself off the bed to grab the suitcase, drags her biggest one out from under the bed and sits down.

“If you actually wanna help,” she begins, tilting her face up to look at Brock, and Brock’s already down from the bed, grabbing another suitcase and zipping it open. “Thanks, man. You really don’t have to, but I appreciate it so much. I’m the slowest unpacker.”

“Don’t even worry about it. Maybe I just wanna help you get your shit done so I can go to bed.” She got the one with most of Benny’s casual stuff, t-shirts and jeans, and she starts folding. “You mind if I put some music on?”

“Good music?” Benny laughs. “Yeah, go for it.”

And Brock Spotifys some Johnny Cash, live at folsom prison or something. The air vibrates with the first song, a base waltz, and Benny smiles her way through folding all the workout clothes and sorting out her shoes and piling up her sheets. 

It’s easy to be quiet, which is nice. She’ll be more chatty tomorrow, she promises, but the music fills up the room well, and Brock’s presence is enough. First suitcase down, she grabs another and some hangers and sits down again. It’s very easy so far, this whole roommate thing. 

She packed way too many coats, she realizes belatedly, but the dresses are pretty cute. They’ll show enough skin for Texas, for sure. Brock is jamming with her eyes half closed to Big River, and so Benny walks over to the little closet to hang her stuff up, and heads over to her bed. She’s still got to make her bed, at bare minimum, before she crashes.

The stuff is half-under the bed, so she bends over to grab it, pushes the pillow off, and starts working the fitted sheet note the bed. It’s definitely a little small, but it’s manageable, and she fits it on. Brock’s almost done with her suitcase, just sitting there watching her. There’s a duet on now, soft guitar and a woman’s voice. “I’d marry you anyways,” the woman says, and it’s a good damn song so Benny lets herself rock back and forth a little, hand warm on her own stomach.

She makes it a couple bars before she gets a weird wedgie, so she tugs her shorts up and leans down for the top sheet, breathing with the lady in the song. There’s something weirdly meditative about this that she likes, space to breathe and move and exist when she takes her time with the bed-making and the unpacking and the existence. Corner, tuck, side, corner, tuck, fold it back. Comforter on, pillowcases, and she’s all set. Brock is — god, she’s still looking at her, liquid eyes, has been this whole time.

Benny looks back, bites her lip and tips her head to the side, a question. Brock’s eyes slide over to Benny’s side, and she jerks her head. Benny follows the gaze, and shit, she’s been moving around a lot and her top is riding up pretty bad, showing off some dangerous underboob.

She tugs it down, earns herself a quick grin. “Thanks. Sorry, all my normal pajamas would give me heatstroke right now.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Brock looks away then, folds up the suitcase and kicks it below the bed, passes her the clothes she folded. “But hey, you won’t have to worry about this stuff tomorrow.”

Benny stuffs the final clothes in a drawer and grins sitting back down on the floor, a job well done, a clean place to live. “Hate to say it, but you were right about getting it done tonight.” 

“I’m always right,” Brock replies, swaying to the music. It’s a pretty lit song now, Get Rhythm, and Benny grins at her and does a little shimmy, rocking back and forth. 

“About the music too,” Benny says, and Brock grins and flicks her gaze around the room and gets up. Benny is sitting with her back to the bedpost and she looks up at Brock for a second before Brock’s hands extend down, an offer. 

She missed this, just being able to touch people, her teammates, her friends. She takes Brock’s hands and hops up with a giggle, swaying a little more, and Brock’s eyes are back on her now, her face, their hands, but it’s a short song and when it ends Brock lets go and falls back to her bed.

“Are you gonna shower? Or just sleep nasty?” Benny asks from her side of the room, and Brock snorts and grabs her cosmetics bag.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going. Had to help you out, didn’t I?” Benny gets that weird feeling again, guilty but not guilty but she wishes she were, but Brock’s smiling so she must not feel too put-upon. She wants to say something but she doesn’t know what, and Brock leaves so quickly anyways there’s no point.

So she adjusts her clothes again, lies down, snuggles into the pillow. It’s awful sleeping weather, but still. Points for effort, right?

Benny knows she should be asleep when Brock comes back in, but the bed is so hot and she’s dying for a little recognition, so she fumbles and asks, “Yo, what time do you have your alarm for tomorrow?”

“Six. We got practice at 7:30. And I like to eat and do a little abs and stretching and stuff before I head over.”

“Aight. Kick me if I try and sleep in. G’night.” Benny fiddles with her phone, sets the alarm, texts one of her all-state buddies with her info. And it’s late, even if it’s hot so she gives Brock one more glance and then rolls over, eyes closed.


	2. as long as old men sit and talk about the weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they nap, they run, they talk.
> 
> chapter title - forever and ever, amen - randy travis
> 
> it's still just fiction bro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up: this chapter has a fair amount of gender feels and mentions of (non-main character) transphobia as well as some relationship drama in the last 1K or so.
> 
> thanks to jesse and andy for the betas!!

September coagulates the heat, takes floaty, dizzy August and turns it into something solid and thick. Benny is lucky this place has nice facilities and everything, with air conditioning for their gym and weight room, because when she goes outside she gets punched by the hot still air. On the diamond Benny chokes trying to inhale, a little bit because the field is pretty enough to cry about, but mostly because of the density. The air is soggy, sticking in her mouth, slowing her breaths.

  
She misses home like anything, for the crispness if nothing else, for the thrill of getting to turn up your collar up in the fall breeze, the bite of good winter air. And she doesn’t even fucking like the cold, but that’s Texas for you, right, making you miss stuff you don’t even like in the first place.

  
Basically the only good thing about Texas fall is that the air conditioning works really damn well most of the time. It’s chilled enough that when she gets home from chem that afternoon, she can throw on some sweatpants to watch TV, basketball on the Aggie channel. Benny’s normally crazy about basketball, the speed and drive of it, but she’s knocked out from the heat right now and really does not have half a brain to pay attention with. So she turns the game volume down a smidge, tucks her knees up, rests her eyes a little bit. A couple minutes here, and then she’ll start on the homework. A couple minutes.

  
She does not start on the homework. She does not start at all until some infinite time span has passed and the TV’s on commercials and suddenly there’s a hand on her shoulder. Gentle, but pushing back and forth, trying to get her up, and she grunts sleepily at the disembodied hand. It’s she doesn’t feel that out yet, couldn’t have slept too long, but— what if she did? She could’ve missed her alarm and Jesus it could be like five now and someone came to see why she missed practice— and then she’s really flinching, sitting upright now, one hand from — Brock, she hopes — still pressing her shoulder.

“Hey, Andybenny.” It is Brock, thank God. Her voice is relaxed and deep, so the apartment must not be on fire yet. “Budge up. Practice in an hour. Gotta get you up and moving a little so you can play today.”

An hour — god, she must’ve been out for the whole midday, an hour asleep here at least, and she groans again, turns her face into the side of the couch. Brock thumps down next to her and shifts her hand over her shoulder, across her neck, into her hair, Jesus. They do have an hour, a whole hour, before practice, Brock just said, and so Benny lets herself lean in and roll her head back into Brock’s hand. The heat is killing her — she’s on at practice, on in class, but so overheated other times, a little too soft and slow. She can blame her heat-idiot head for moving closer — Brock’s shoulder is right there, so she lets herself scoot in, pressing her whole side against Brock.

Brock signs, lightly, just barely audible over the fan. “Damn, you’re out of it, huh?” And Benny gives a little noise before snuggling in closer. Brock sounds tired too, but being close always helps Benny, and a little more nap before practice never hurt anyone. It’s still hot, and Brock is warm obviously, but for whatever reason Benny feels Brock’s warmth in a different way, a grounding safe heat. The air isn’t choking anymore — it’s breathable. The pressure’s good too, her leg on Brock’s, her head on Brock’s shoulder, Brock’s fingers running through her hair. A reminder.

It’s been, what, a month now since she left home and her mom, a month since she was held like this, encompassing. She missed it something awful. God, but Benny’s lucky to have a roomie who’ll indulge her for a second, let Benny hit the stupid switch and center herself around the contact, who’ll scrape her own nails over Benny’s scalp, her neck. Benny whines softly at the scrape, and Brock hums back and does it again, right over the nape of her neck..

And they just stay like that until Brock makes another little noise, and shifts, nudging Benny’s head off her shoulder. “Half an hour now, Benny,” and her voice rumbles through Benny’s ears, deep from sitting. “Let’s get going.” A final brush through Benny’s hair, and her stomach flips a little, but the Brock’s up and so Benny finally blinks her eyes open, wriggles herself into a comfortable position and stands up, tugging at her shirt, and — oh. 

Brock’s looking at her, head tilted, and they gotta get ready but her eyes are deep and liquid and lazily flickering around Benny’s face. They’ve gotta get ready but Brock is already in her workout gear and Benny’s in a three-year-old wrinkled cotton tank top that stops like an inch above her skirt, and Brock’s eyes are moving, and Benny is hit with the sudden urge to stretch. To show off.

“You doing okay?” Brock asks, still looking. And shit, she probably thinks Benny’s some touch-starved loser frosh, and Benny has to kick herself out of saying “no” for the sake of maybe getting another hug.

“Yeah,” she says, and tries to file away the memory, the feeling of the softness and the fingernails on her neck. Gives Brock a little smile, hopes it’s convincing. “This heat’s just killing me.”

And it’s been three weeks but she’s still not used to Brock’s eyes, the weight of her gaze on her. She gets embarrassed, almost, but it feels different than normal, or maybe self-conscious but in a weird way where she wants it again, wants Brock to keep looking at her and smiling. This must be. This must be. This must be, like, why everyone goes so crazy about great teams — if you feel like this all the time when you’re playing, how can you not do your best?

“Okay,” Brock says, and turns around and walks into the bathroom. Benny’s stuck idiotically looking at the door for a minute. But they’re actually getting tight on time, and doing a big run today and then accuracy conditioning for that authentic exhaustion experience. So Benny forces herself forwards towards her room to get ready. Hand — hand — arm— bra — shirt. It’s a little robotic, because half her brain is melted and the other half is still curled up on the couch. She ties back her hair. The sports channel plays on.

She and Brock are the last ones down to the first floor, both just a smidge disheveled, and they almost run right into Chris coming down the last stairs. Chris has her headphones on again, and doesn’t even turn around. X does, though, gives Benny a little eyebrow raise. Her eyeshadow is this pink shade today that should look horribly unnatural but is actually cute.

They get around the conglomeration. It’s X and Vaz and Chris and Ricki, and one of Chris’s headphones is actually pushed off her ear, and she’s laughing at something Ricki said.  
“Yo, Brock, we good to go?” That’s from Vaz, whose collection of bro tanks is seemingly infinite — she’s in a pink one today with the openings going down, like, a foot. “If we’re missing anyone else we’re gonna need to, like, teleport there to make practice on time.”

Brock grins and says “Nothing wrong with a little bit of sprinting,” and now — Benny is starting to notice these little things, trying to follow the right cues — she is on, a little sharper than normal, jaw tenser, eyes brighter. Makes eye contact with Pedey, and Benny doesn’t want to interrupt their thing so she turns back around towards X.

“How’s it going, X?” and X was talking with Vaz, but they let Benny in. They’re just starting a good little chat on Game of Thrones (X is a mega-fan, evidently) when Pedey claps and jerks her head toward the door. 

It’s a quick, light jog down, only fifteen sunny minutes to the diamond. Benny squirts some water into her mouth, like, every thirty seconds. She can feel the sun searing into her shoulders, wishes she’d brought better sunscreen.

Benny’s still a little out of it when they get to practice. Pedey says they’re going right into the run after the stretching, which is good at least. She’s gonna get a chance to clear her head. She likes running, likes the pounding and the sense of rhythm, likes the sense of getting out of her head.

But they still gotta stretch before they go— this team stretches way longer than her old team did, like almost twenty minutes before they do anything else. They’re in pigeon (X groans, Ricki is sprawled out on the floor, Mich’s fingers are yellow-white pressing into the ground) and holding it for like two minutes each side, which is, like, long enough to throw Benny’s leg into numbness.

Pedey calls time and they switch to the other leg. Benny’s just settling down in between Jackie and Brock, moving slow and easy, extending the hip flexor, when Nunie looks around their little end of the circle. “So. Anyone else call basketball getting their ass beat by the Mormons?”

And Benny’d caught the end of the last quarter of the BYU game after waking up on the couch, but honestly the memory’s a little blurry now behind the sweat of the morning and the warmth of Brock late. So she gives a noncommittal little nod, and Brock does the same thing. Jackie did see the game though, and Mich used to play, and they get so into this vicious debate over the loss that Pedey has to call like three times for them to stand up and start with the arm stretches.

Brock and Benny nod along, and occasionally Brock’ll make some comment about their play earlier in the season. She carefully avoids talking about the BYU game, which makes Benny grin, just a bit. It’s nice knowing something they don’t know, nice knowing Brock’s also thrown by their nap.

Anyways, Mich is in the middle of this tirade about the defense (she can’t stand sloppy, non-physical defense, and the Aggies were getting bowled over by these smaller girls) when Coach Mags tells them to pick it up for their run. It’s is a little painful heading out into the glare of the sun, the swelter of the 3 pm.

“You doing okay, Andy?” Brock asks offhand, shucking her shirt before they leave. That’s the second time she’s asked that today, and the heat’s killing her but it’s not like anyone else is any cooler. Everyone else is running in it, and she doesn’t want to be a pussy, and so she gives a little nod.

Brock smiles encouragingly, and so Benny has to tilt her own head and grin, and then Mags calls them up and they’re off. The trail is shady at least, a good six miles along the side of the river, and Brock starts out at the top of the the pack, because of course she does. Benny starts out with Pedey, in the middle of the pack, chugging along — but Pedey’s got earbuds in and is looking pissed. A minute in, and Pedey steps on it, chugging out to the front, ahead of Brock, next to Mookie.

Brock is laughing at something that Daelyn whispered to her, maybe ten paces ahead, so Benny breathes out, sets her jaw and picks up the pace a little bit. This is gonna hurt, she already knows, the soggy air is sticking in her lungs and the ground feels rough beneath her feet on her steps. Benny picks up her feet and jumps up and falls in on Brock’s shoulder, next to Jackie and Brock looks over and gives her this surprised grin. She wants to finish like this, on her shoulder. See what sort of smile she can get out of that.

Brock sets a good pace. She runs like a lightweight, quick steps, shoulders relaxed and arms swinging. Benny doesn’t have to think at all, really, running like this. Gets to lose herself in the pounding rhythm, breathing with Brock, their feet falling together.

She looks over to Brock when they pass the first bridge, trying to remember how far they’ve gone, how much longer there is to go. Brock is sweating properly now, hair slicked down to her face, chest heaving. She’s got her phone upside-down in her bra, playing some rap off the workout playlist. Must’ve forgotten her earbuds at home. _At home — with Benny — fingers in her hair —_

She stumbles over the rock in the trail, and snaps her eyes back off of Brock. God, she’s got to wake up, stop getting distracted by the memory. And then, honestly, she’s got to get a boyfriend or get laid or something. This is just kind of sad now, getting this obsessive over a roomie’s touch. But _fingers in her hair —_

They’re getting close to the bridge, and Benny normally likes to talk while she runs, but this is good too, ears full of the sound of feet and breath and the odd base note from Brock’s phone. Being right in there with the pack, her and Brock and Daelyn and Jackie.

The song switches to something big and loud and twangy, and Brock gives a little whoop and nods her head to the beat. The bridge turn is here, and they’re halfway now and the burn in her legs and glutes is strong. If this were somewhere else, if she couldn’t hear Jackie breathing way too hard in her ear and Brock yelling, she’d drop back and avoid the cramp and jog it out.

Brock reaches down, turns the music a beat higher and grins sharp. “Let’s fuckin’ go.” Her feet wham down the other side of the bridge, rhythm unchanged, and Benny shares an incredulous look with Jackie before picking up her own feet a little more and shutting out the sun and pacing with Brock. They are moving through the last three miles like nobody’s fucking business. Benny knows her mascara must be smudging something awful with the sweat, can’t bring herself to wipe it away. 

They run. Brock has this furious half-smile on her face, and Daelyn is wheezing, and Benny’s legs explode with every step. But Brock is moving and so Benny can’t stop moving, desperate and quick, world narrowed to her feet on the trail and her lungs filling with soggy air and her eyes on Brock and the vanishing point ahead. Chin up, her old coach says in her mind, and she lifts her head and runs. And then it’s just them, Benny three steps back from Brock.

“Andy,” Brock yells back, and she’s shining in a patch of sunlight that crept through the trees, and — _fingers in her hair_ — mind on your legs, Benny, eyes on the road.

“Andy, you can get angry with it.” The air is sweaty and oppressive, but Benny tries, she really does. Thinks about DMX, a fast aggressive beat, and her legs hurt, and Brock is so light and so good and so mean and so fucking fast. And Benny, with the shittiest conditioning scores of the entire freshman class, has not fallen off yet. The thought makes her want to grin.

“One more mile. Not even.” And then they pass the paddle dock, further along than either of them thought, and Brock gets out, “Benny. Half a mile. Home stretch, baby.” Benny jolts back up even with her.

Half a mile. She can do that. Half a mile more, and the heat is hitting her in the face with every step now, solid air, but she doesn’t want to slow the brutal pace down. Rhythm — rhythm — rhythm and swing. What you see — is what you get — and you ain’t seen — nothing yet, says Brock’s phone, and she picks up her knees a little more. Brock is so very sharp, body moving quick, feet light. Benny can feel her heartbeat in her throat and eyelids and the tips of her ears.

They see the clubhouse, and Brock is grinning now, vicious, face set, and Benny forces her legs a bit quicker, over the line two steps behind the captain. The world is just a little shiny and blurred, and she can’t feel her feet, but she’s done she’s done she’s done.

Pedey is back already, vomiting into a trash can. Mookie is walking around like she’s been back a while, barely even breathing hard. Benny is panting, wobbles off the trail, and Brock grabs her around the shoulders, walks her over to a bench. She sits down, leans over her knees, seeing spots, blinking in and out, wonders if it’s the sun or the water or just her head.

Brock laces her hands behind her head. “Hands up, hey. Hands behind your head, open your airway.” Benny mimics Brock’s posture, tries to slow her breathing and focus her vision.

The spots are starting to go away when Jackie and Daelyn and Kelly pull up, breathing hard. Kelly stumbles over to the bench and grabs her bottle. “Hydrate or die-drate,” she says, and pours the water directly onto her nose, and Brock breaks out into wheezing laughter. Kelly sputters, laughs and chokes on the water. She goes to moves the bottle towards her mouth and pours the rest of it down her shirt, and it is the funniest thing Benny has ever seen. The whole team laughs, Kelly gapes like a caught fish, Benny leans back into her hands and can barely breathe for how much she loves this team.

“Benny,” Kelly chokes out, still holding the bottle upside down. “Somebody’s back quick.” She’s wet and almost crying with how hard she’s laughing. It’s not really all that funny, but Benny’s still giggling too hard to talk.

“Fuck yeah she is,” Brock says, with this exhausted little happy smile. She drops her hands from behind her head, squeezes Benny’s shoulder. “Rookie’s gettin’ it done.”  
And Benny, despite the scream in her legs and the burn in her lungs and the sun in her eyes, grins back helplessly.  


* * *

It was a really good run day for a team that needs conditioning, and AC’s so happy with the effort that she lets them go 15 minutes early from throwing practice time. Daelyn breaks it down, and then X has a question for her about the freshman writing seminar, and by the time they’re done talking she’s lost track of Brock. They normally walk home together, especially after night practices. She’s not in the locker room, not in the club house, and when benny finally spots her in a corner of the lobby, chatting with Vaz, she’s about to go up when Daelyn walks up to her.

She knocks their shoulders together. “Yo, Benny. You coming to Fuego’s tonight?” The tacos sound good, and she’s gonna have to waddle up there cause her legs are still burning, but she grins.

“Catch me there. Who’s driving?”

“Chris, claim a seat fast if you want it.”

“She gonna run all the stop signs again?”

“Drive yourself if you want.” And then, sing-song, “Your giiirlfriend has a seat.” Benny honks a laugh and grins. She laughs because it is a funny teasing thing to say, and because she calls everyone her girlfriend, and because it is a ridiculous thought. A ridiculous thought. There is an awkward silence, and she wills the blush out of her cheeks, unsuccessfully. She looks over. Sure enough, Brock’s over with Chris and all them, sharp eyes, says something that sends Vaz into laughter.

“Hey, I’m not complaining, I’d love a ride. Chris likes to live on the edge, all I’m saying. How has she not gotten pulled over yet?”

“Who? Oh, she has,” Evo says, brushing by Price. “Got like 18 points on her license.”

The Chris group is floating over towards Daelyn and Benny, quickly enough that Chris hears Evo’s comment and snorts.“Don’t diss the points, that shit took me time! Some of us have been driving longer than six months, Evo.” 

Chris drives a 7-seater grey van with a dent in the side and a broken door. On a good night, ten of them can fit in, which means after Brock gets lovingly elbowed out of shotgun by Sandy, there’s nobody properly sitting down on a seat — everyone’s crowded in on top of each other, the pitchers dogpiling in the back. Mookie and Benny end up squeezed into one of the middle seats, Brock in the other, Swi on the floor in the middle.

It’s awkward for half a minute, and then Chris accelerates up to forty when they turn onto Lake, and Mookie yelps and Swi reaches up to punch her shoulder. Mookie sniffs and reaches for the seatbelt and she and Benny wrestle to buckle it over both of them, laughing at the dig of the polyester. And then it’s normal.

Chris switches the station and this horrible — truly horrible — old Mellencamp rock song comes on, blaring louder than the AC, and Brock rolls down the window and whoops. Turns around to look at Benny, sharp eyes again, and Benny almost can’t hear the music when she starts singing.

She slaps her knees, tells Chris to turn it up, “Come on, issa good song.” And then, when Evo groans — “Come on, Nat, a little team bonding never hurt anybody. You gonna set a good example?”

“You ain’t as green as you - are - young,” says Evo, deadpan, amazingly robotic. “Hey, baby, it’s you.” And then Daelyn laughs, and speaks the lyrics to the rest of the verse with her.

“Oh, fuck y’all! Back me up, baby,” Brock yells to Benny, and she doesn’t know the verse but she knows the chorus.

And so Benny does sing, screams the chorus with Brock, gets Mookie to hum a little bit. Swi’s giggling, and Sandy is guffawing, and she can see the sign for Fuego a little up the road.

“Hurt so good,” Benny sings, and Mookie pokes her in the side, hard enough to make her wince. “Come on baby, make — ouch, not like that, man, are you kidding? — come on baby, make it hurt so good —” 

Benny’s squint-laughing too hard to see, but she thinks Brock must look over, because she hears her laugh soaring through the car. When she does look over, Brock’s face is still soft and lit up, eyes shut, cackling noiselessly. Laughter really does look like her natural state, the point of it all, breathless as God.

* * *

Dinner is, it turns out, good.

The tacos are good. The Dr. Pepper is good. Sandy’s enchiladas are great, but mostly because she lets everyone snitch a forkful of one, and stolen food always tastes better. 

Benny’s seat is good, right next to Brock, nestled into the corner. She gets a little claustrophobic sometimes, but tonight she doesn’t feel weird at all. Mostly, she feels sleepy and good-achey, so she sits and lets the sounds and smells of the room wash over her. The corner seat is cozy, warm but not unbearably so, a nice little quiet space.

The glow of the room is good, when Brock says something snarky and Chris snorts and Sandy laughs her big bell laugh.

Benny’s arm feels good, tired but good, when Brock presses up against it to grab some hot sauce and squeezes her into the corner. Benny’s leg feels good the whole time, squeezed against Brock.

Dinner with everyone is good, but dinner with everyone and Brock is better.  
  


* * *

After Fuego and ice cream and Chris’s scenic route back to the dorm, they get back after ten, and the ache is really starting to set into Benny’s legs now. She winces her way up the stairs, brushing shoulders with Brock, and goes to fumble for her key when she notices— the door is open.

She nudges Brock. “Yo, what’s up?” Brock is already moving quickly, creaks the door another degree open, and bites down hard on her lip when she sees inside.

“Honey,” Brock says, voice low. Then, offhand: “It’s fine, Benny, it’s fine. Do you want to — “ Benny is right next to her, seeing into the room before she can finish her sentence.

“God damn it,” Pedey says, and she’s sitting on Brock’s bed looking at the ground with her shirt off and three sports bras layered on. She’s running a hand over her face and onto her head, her nose streaked with blood and her face wet and puffy. Benny feels her stomach flip.

This isn’t the first time Pedey’s just showed up in their room. She comes over sometimes, to talk numbers or training or technique or just to hang. Normally the captains sprawl over the couch in the adjoining lounge room, watch TV or talk training or play Fortnite. (The lounge is technically a suite thing but the girls across the hall have a no-screen thing so it’s basically exclusive to them.)

Even when it’s normal like that, it’s a little awkward for Benny, just because they’re captains and older and have the weird things where they move together sometimes. Little things like shaking out their shoulders or sighing. But now, they are not moving together. Right now Pedey is shaking so hard she’s vibrating the bed and squeaking the springs. Benny wants to hug her or talk to her or play her some music or something. She won’t, obviously, because Pedey’s the captain and she knows what she’s doing, but she wants to.  
Pedey shifts her eyes up, sees Brock and Benny in the doorway. “God damn it,” Pedey says again, face contorted. “Come in.” Benny hesitates, and Pedey sighs loud, almost a cry.

“Benny too, if you want,” Brock nods and shoots Benny an apologetic glance and steps in; Benny follows, eyes swinging between Pedey and Brock.

“What’s up?” Brock’s face is artificially relaxed, her breathing a little too even.

“I don’t — God damn it,” she says, trails off. Brock goes and sits down right next to her and rubs her back. Benny can hear the springs on the bed still whining softly as Pedey vibrates up and down. “We were up in my room and she keeps on asking me what I am, like I’m a different fucking species or something, when we — I don’t even know. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m too fucked and this is too much.”

Benny feels vaguely nauseous again. She is watching something she shouldn’t be. 

“You love her,” Brock says, still rubbing her back. Her eyes flicker once up to Benny, monitoring, deciding Benny’s not gonna say anything stupid, flicker back down. Pedey has her head in her hands now, bent almost double. “Why’s it matter that much to her what you ask her to call you?”

“You wouldn’t — I don’t know. She’s a Lesbian, capital L.” And the captain is a lesbian? Has a girlfriend, and just talks about it, and Brock nods along? Benny can feel her heartbeat in her eyelids.

But the lesbian thing is clearly not the point of this for anyone else. Pedey whistles out a breath and starts again.

“She’s a Lesbian, capital L. And. And. It wasn’t even that big of a deal this summer when I told her I might be not all the way, you know, a girl. But yesterday she called me her girlfriend, like, ‘you are my girlfriend, do you have a problem with that.’ I don’t know how to tell her the issue isn’t being her whatever. But every time she calls me a girl I get nauseous. And I —” Pedey is rocking back and forth on the bed, and Brock is rocking right with — her? them? — is rocking with Pedey.

Pedey says something to Brock, so soft Benny can’t hear her. And then, louder, “Could you? Again?”

“You can be her boyfriend,” Brock says, and Pedey sobs into — his? — hands. “Pedey, be her boyfriend. If she doesn’t want to call you that, that’s her problem.”

“She left. She just walked out, told me to talk to her tomorrow when I could make sense, asked me if I hated myself enough to — “ Pedey chokes the end of the sentence off and picks her head up and shoots her eyes over to Benny. “Sorry for doing this in your room. This must not make any sense.”

“It’s okay,” Benny says, and that’s not the right thing to say at all, not even close, so — “Do you want me to call you … a guy?” Benny says, thinking about Pedey throwing up into the trash can after the run, 5’2” and one of the first three back. Thinks about Pedey in their fielding drills, jaw set, sprinting and throwing and hustling after everyone else is gone.

“Not a girl. Something else. Other pronouns, I guess, like, he and his. Like what you’d call a guy. But I’m not — but different.“ Pedey’s head drops into his hands again. He’s quiet for a couple breaths.

“Okay,” says Benny, blinking. “I can do that.” Pedey huffs a short laugh through his nose. And Pedey being not a girl — it changes some things, but mostly not a lot. Mostly not a lot. Mostly Pedey will still run stretches and practice and show them all up in the batters box.

“Thanks,” Pedey says shortly, his chin resting on his palms. He waits a couple breaths before speaking again. “Needed to tell y’all sometime soon anyways. I try and get this shit over with before the on-season starts.” And Benny— it hadn’t even crossed her mind, that this could affect his game. It seems impossible for anything to affect Pedey’s game.

She says as much, and Pedey smiles just a little, his eyes lit up. Brock rubs her hand over Pedey’s neck, and he bounces his leg, and the silence that falls feels natural. Brock’s hand is still moving on Pedey’s back.

Brock breaks the silence first, once Pedey’s breathing has slowed to a normal rhythm. “Go to bed,” Brock says. “Get some rest, and we have the weights tomorrow morning, and then if you want you can call Sasha.” Pedey rocks back and forth. Pedey looks like he might cry again. Pedey stands up and Brock envelops him in this gigantic bear hug. 

“Goodnight,” says Pedey, and grabs his shirt off the bed.

“Goodnight,” says Benny, smiling at him. She hopes he was talking to her — he probably wasn’t. That’s awkward. The door closes.

“God — love it,” says Brock. She breathes out deliberately and sits back down on her own bed. Benny is still standing by the door. “Benny, sit down.”

Benny sits down.

“Thanks for being a human person about this.” Brock is not sharp any more, in the way she is with the team, and even the way she is with Pedey a little. She is drooping, just a little, breathing quietly.

“Yeah,” says Benny. “Of course.”

“Do you have any bad questions I can answer?”

“Is he a lesbian?”

“Sort of.”

“What should I call him at practice?” Benny asks

“Pedey,” Brock says, and then snorts. “Him, I think. He’s gonna tell the rest of the people soon. 

“What’s gonna happen?”

“What’s gonna —“ Brock huffs again. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna go to bed. And then we’re gonna lift tomorrow morning. And Pedey is gonna be my co-captain, and you’re gonna be my roomie, and AC is gonna be our coach. And when games start, we’re gonna win.” 

She breathes out, eyes wide open, boring a hole through the wall. This is the incorrect moment to ask for a goodnight hug, Benny knows, and hates herself briefly for even thinking it. Brock is good when she’s sharp with the team and her eyes are shinning and her face is all angles, but she is also good when she is melting a little bit and just letting herself exist. Even like this, she is solid, iron, willing her goals into reality, willing the team into cohesion.

“We’re gonna win,” Brock says again, and Benny says it back to her, and Brock nods, and they go to bed.


	3. if you like em painted up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> finally back in action hehe.. enjoy! comments make my week  
>  thanks to britt & skyler for beta!

Lifting the next morning is not as awkward as it should be. They’re not maxing or anything, just a nice little hi-rep, low-weight session, and apart from the one time Pedey had to tackle Brock to keep her from playing some hype yodel flute song, it’s an efficient practice. Benny’s got a good ache going when they head out, and leans against the wall to wait for Brock to finish talking with Pedey.  
The door slams open, and Benny must still be waking up, because it makes her jump.  
“Good morning, girls,” Vaz hollers, way too loud for the room size, and everyone turns around to look at her. Her tank top today is orange and says “The West wasn’t won on salad,” with every word in a different, less readable font.  
“Yo. We’ve got a deal going on on Saturday. I'm turning 21 on Friday, so we’re doing a whole thing, got a house, some plans. Y’all better be there.”  
Pedey grins and nods, and Brock says “When’s it at?” Benny doesn’t have a fake, yet, not even a shitty one, but she nods along and gives Vaz a grin.  
“Start coming over at like eight. X says she’ll send out all the calendar stuff. A sparkly e-vite or some shit.”  
“See ya,” Benny says, and then Vaz has to talk with Nunie about some important point about the clubs, and Benny has a class in an hour, so she grabs Brock and they head out.  
Brock lets her get first shower, so she has time to get a frappe before calc, which will be important because she’s actually gonna get kicked out if she falls asleep in class again. X is nursing a RedBull and looking similarly out of it, so she kicks her bag down and claims the seat.  
“You ready for the test?” She asks between sips, and X groans and laughs.  
“Fuck do I know,” she says, like her econ-major ass hasn’t aced all their quizzes. “More importantly — you ready for the party?” Benny quirks a brow at her, and X lights up. “Oh my god, this is your first real college event, isn’t it? Baby’s first house party.”  
“Yeah, yeah, fuck off.” It’s funny X is laughing at her, cause she’s a fish too, barely a month into the college party scene but acting like some senior tri-delt girl. “Not like you know any better.”  
They both laugh, loud, and the guy in from of them turns to glare, so they quiet down.  
“Seriously, though,” X says, once he’s turned back around. “Whatcha gonna wear?”  
Benny shrugs. She’s the worst at planning this shit, always ends up forgetting and then freaking three hours before and obliterating her closet looking for a look. “I got a couple old dresses, but I dunno.”  
“Wanna see mine?” X asks, and pulls up her phone, and — wow.  
“Are those leather shorts?”  
“Please. That’s animal cruelty or something. Pleather, obviously.”  
Benny laughs again, and the guy turns around, again, and hisses “Shut up,” X raises her eyebrows at him.  
“Seriously, we should probably, like, not fail this test,” Benny says, and writes down the practice problem on the whiteboard. She can’t do it, obviously, but at least she knows exactly what problem she can’t solve. Brock’s in sports management or something— she must’ve taken calc, right? She wonders if Brock was good at calc. She wonders what Brock’s wearing to the party.  
X bumps her. “You gonna finish your frappe?” It must be cold by now, but she gives X a nod and takes another sip. Maybe it’ll make Benny wake up a little more, stop daydreaming, start relating the rates and deriving the whatever.  
—  
She doesn’t think about calc again until the next evening, after a hard practice, when the school emails her about study hall. A&M is super neurotic about the freshman grades, especially for athletes. But it hadn’t really sunk in that she’s gotta raise em 15 points or she’ll have to —  
“Two-hour study hall? Jesus. Ugh.” She rolls her eyes and sits up to re-read the email, kicking her feet over the edge of the bed.  
“Sup,” Brock says. Lucky bitch — she’s still lying down, eyes half-open, one earbud in.  
“They’re gonna make me do study hall if I finish the quarter without bumping my average up to an 85.” She groans, reaches over to her backpack (also on her bed, like all her stuff is, the room’s center of gravity) and pulls out her calc notebook. “Fucking calculus is tanking my GPA. You take it?”  
“Yeah. Good class. All that math stuff makes sense to me for some reason. You in it now?"  
“Yeah. Not gonna lie, it’s kicking my ass. Lend me some of that math-making-sense energy,” She leans back, knocks her head against the wall, once, twice. “X and I are in the same block, and she’s doing fine, but I have no clue what’s going on.”  
“What unit are you on?” Brock drops the phone to her chest, pops the other earbud out, turns to look at her.  
“Fuckin’… related rates. We just finished derivatives like last week, and we’ve already got another text next Tuesday”  
“You want a hand studying?” Shit, was Benny too lazy? Too forward? Oh well, Brock’s offering, already half-rolled out of bed.  
“If you’ve got a minute,” Benny says, tilting her head, watching Brock slide down off the bed to the floor for a second before she follows. “Thanks.”  
“Yeah, I’ve got a minute,” Brock says, grabbing for Benny’s notes and flipping through.”So. Related rates. You have — okay, you’ve got this shadow, a person walking away from the light. So you can set up the triangle —“  
Brock explains the concept well, as athlete-tutors go, easy to listen to. Benny just wishes Brock wouldn’t keep looking back up at her every few words. She’ll be pretty down into the details of a problem and thinking about sine and cosine and angular shit like that, and then Brock’ll look to try to check-in, and —  
And her eyes are just so soft in the evenings, and one of them has a lash sticking out to at a weird angle, and Benny wants to fix it, and then she wonders how Brock goes from sharp to soft so quickly, and then Brock looks away and she jolts back into the problem. She — god, Benny needs to get over herself — she’s still not used to those fucking eyes, looking at her like she’s the center of the world, like she’s the only other person who exists, just draw her out back into the moment. Which is stupid.  
She tries to look at the paper more after she realizes how distracted she’s getting, but it’s hard. Benny counts it a success when she can do a couple of the triangle problems by herself — and if the distance is changing at v(x) = 4.3x + 1 then the hypotenuse is changing at cos15*v(x). Work for the night accomplished. But Brock seems to like explaining the stuff, her hands moving quickly as she talks through the problems’ geometry, and who’s Benny to deny her that pleasure? So Benny tunes out mentally and lets herself look a bit.  
“How does this even relate to derivatives?” She groans, offhand and rhetorical, and watches Brock light up. For a ballplayer, Brock can get pretty geeky about this stuff.  
“Look, look.” Benny looks. Brock’s index finger is dancing along the paper, smudging the graphite. “The sides are changing together, it’s just — it’s actually just like a normal function, where you have the rate of change represented by the derivative. So if you want you can think about it like a funky unit circle —“  
Brock talks, and Benny lets herself look. She talks about math like she talks about baseball, but even more so, because she’s not scholarship-obliged to care about calculus. Brock’s face is softer than normal, more open, her hands flapping around, her accent coming through. Her eyes aren’t on edge, but open, and glowing, and Benny is so glad she can look, just watch. She likes watching.  
“You don’t need — to know this for the test, but still. It’s cool.” Brock looks down, huffs a self-aware laugh, and is she embarrassed? She’s blushing, which she never does.  
“No, it’s okay.” Brock starts and scoots a little closer to point out something else about the hypotenuse-distance relationship, some actual formula she’d use. “Seriously.” Benny brushes her fingers over Brock’s wrist, lets herself watch their hands touch over the smudged graphite.  
“Anyways, yeah, the distance changes with time, and —” And. And Brock talks, and Benny watches.  
—  
Benny did promise X she’d plan her own outfit, but it’s three hours before the party starts when she remembers she still has no clue what to wear. She showers fast, and puts on a nice nude pushup bra and panties, and starts agonizing.  
She’s gone through and rejected two pairs of shorts and a dress, thrown over her bed, and is scrabbling through looking for a dress. The only time her overpacking ever helped, she’s got every dress she’s ever worn in the last three years. Green — no, ugly, and she wants to wear her nice maroon heels, so not green— black? Or blue, maybe, is there — there’s a couple options, nice. She drags the dress out of the closet, and turns around, and— oh.  
Brock is standing there in the doorway, her body propping the door open, and looking. And Benny holds the shirt up to her chest and wishes her eyes didn’t make her feel so weird, wishes they had two rooms or something, but at the same time — Brock doesn’t look mad, really, just sort of intense. Brock is still standing there in the doorframe, and that won’t do, it’s her room too.  
“Thank god,” Benny says. “Come in, sit down. I need your help.” This is familiar ground, the rookie and mentor, Benny needing Brock’s help, and Brock still looks a little on-edge but she comes in, lets the door shut  
“You’re going to Vaz’s thing, right?” Brock nods, still standing and shifting from foot to foot, so Benny just sort of keeps talking. “Okay okay okay. So. I need a good outfit. And it starts in three hours, and I haven’t planned anything, ‘cause I’m dumb.”  
She pulls on the dress quickly, off the shoulder and flowy, falling right above her knees. Brock is still looking, and so Benny leans into it, just a bit. This isn’t awkward — she’s done the thing with lots of her girlfriends back home, laughed through fourteen different outfit options. This isn’t awkward.  
She gives a twirl, feels Brock’s eyes on her back, her ass, her thighs, accepts the blush as a fact of life. It feels good, being watched.  
“Is the dress too junior prom?” Brock tilts her head, sits back on her bed, squints, nods.  
“Not going for the Disney look?” Brock asks, voice low and scratchy.  
“Nah. I’m trying to look properly gooood.” She stretches the last word out with a little smirk, and Brock’s eyes get impossibly wider, and Benny’s face reddens up a little more.  
“Anyways. Do you mind?” She grabs the hem of her dress, and she doesn’t really know what she’s doing but it feels good.  
“Go ahead,” Brock says.  
Benny strips it off quickly, and it’s over her head before she remembers how soft her torso is, compared to Brock’s. She’s strong now, stronger than she was in high school, but it’s soft muscle, not lightweight eight-pack shit like Brock has. If she was in Ohio she’d get mocked to California and back for how fat she’s gotten.  
But skinnyabs Brock is still looking at her with the stupid melty eyes, and she can feel her stomach literally buzzing with the sensation of being watched, so she grabs another dress blindly and steps into it. It’s old, a LBD with a low v-neck, and really tight on her. God. Not helping matters.  
She can’t even get it up above her hips her first try, so she unzips it a little more and wiggles, looking away, and — finally — gets it up, pulls her arms through, and almost dislocates her shoulder trying to zip it up halfway. She must look like a sausage, and she bites down on her lip as she spins for Brock.  
“You look — good. Like you’re gonna film some weird pop music video at a funeral. But good,” Brock says, and she’s getting into the flow of it now, even if she’s lying about how the dress looks, so Benny gives her an encouraging little smile and starts flipping through the hangers again.  
“Sorry, my fat ass forgot I gained weight since sophomore year,” she says, and this is good, she can apologize properly for getting basically naked in front of her roomie. “I’m gonna have to drop another twenty before this one will work.”  
“Benny,” Brock says in this funny tone, and Benny doesn’t look at Brock, doesn’t want to see the pitydisgust, so she just steps out of the dress. Her naked stomach looks, somehow, better than it did in the black dress.  
“Your ass looks great,” Brock says, in that weird choked off voice again. “And thank god you’re not the same size you were three years ago, huh. That’d be some pretty weird baseball.”  
Benny snorts and buries herself back in the closet. It’s nice to have Brock here, actually. Even if she’s lying to her about her ass and Benny’s embarrassing herself, it’s nice to get a second opinion. Brock is looking her, and somehow that’s more important than everything else combined. “Yeah, right. Anyways. Pick a color?”  
“Color?” Brock’s lounging now, spread on her bed. “Red. Jeez, how many dresses do you have?”  
“Enough,” Benny chirps, and finally excavates a red one. And oh, it’s nice, just from last year, skintight but not sausage-y, with cutouts on her hips.  
It goes on easier than the last one, thankfully, and Benny has it halfway up before she realizes how impossibly low down the zipper is. She almost threw out her shoulder trying to get the last zipper, and she doesn’t want to be a bother but hey, she’s trying on this one for Brock, right? She can ask. She gets to.  
“Would you give me a hand?” Brock is already rising up to her feet, padding over. Brushes Benny’s hair off her neck, and some falls back, so she moves her whole hand to press her hair forward to the side of her neck, pressing warmth, pressing, and Benny lets out this little whine and leans back into it. It’s not even voluntary, really. The pressure just feels so good, the weight on her neck, just like — just like the time on the couch. Brock scrapes her fingernails down and pulls the zip up, and Benny’s whole body shivers. This is good. This is what it’s supposed to be, Benny thinks, this is like — this is like a good pitch, fast down the middle, and you know before you swing it’s going to be over the fence. The universe just shifts a little, a couple inches to the left, and everything is buzzing good.  
Brock zips slowly, still cupping Benny’s neck. She can feel her breath on her ear. She can feel the warmth of Brock’s body a couple inches behind her own. Dear god.  
But this is why she’s dressing up in the first place, right? To get some, to stop being so neurotic about her roommate’s skin, to have a good time that doesn’t revolve around Brock’s eyes.  
“Good?” Brock says, and Benny starts. It’s zipped, it’s done. It feels good on her skin.  
“I — yeah. Good.” Brock goes back to the bed and sits down, and Benny checks in the mirror. This is a nice fucking dress.  
She gives Brock the twirl, and checks herself out again. It makes her body look good, thick enough to hide her stomach but low-cut enough to show off her tits, cuts off just a few inches below her ass. Her thighs are gonna chafe pretty badly, but she can live with it for now.  
“That’s it,” Brock says. “If you like it, that’s — that’s killer.” Brock’s eyes are unbearable, heat in her stomach and on her legs.  
“Okay,” Benny says, and grabs her shoes.”Sorry — sorry for making you deal with that. I’m good now.” She pulls on the shoes, goes to grab her makeup. “What’re you wearing?”  
“You’ll see,” says Brock, and winks at her. “Go claim the bathroom for your makeup, or E-Rod’s gonna kick you out.”  
So she goes.  
—  
Brock is wearing a white button-down, and suspenders, and a leather jacket, and dark jeans. She is not wearing a bra.  
“Titties out for 21,” says Daelyn, who is wearing a bra and an unzipped pink hoodie. She thrusts a shot at Brock, gives Benny a suspicious look, and passes her one as well.  
This is an excellent start to the evening. Benny knocks back three shots before X runs into her with a full-volume wolf whistle, and then they’re distracted by X, who is wearing the hell out of the leather - sorry, pleather - shorts, and clearly already gone.They arrived late; Vaz is already sauced and singing along to Ke$ha, and (X gestures wildly to another room, with an ugly disco ball) Kelly is trying to argue her way to the front of the karaoke line.  
“You wanna sing?” X yells, and Benny isn’t quite feeling it yet, and besides Daelyn has already dragged off Brock to karaoke. So she shakes her head and X gets them some more shots and sloshes over to a couch near the back. Mich and Steph are already at a table nearby, a deck of cards pushed to the side, laughing hysterically over something or other. They move to make room.  
“Hey — I didn’t say before. You look great. Your whole thing is just great.” flaps her hands up and down, and X beams.  
“Aww, babe. It was half my party anyways, so I’m just glad people showed up.” She looks fondly to the dance floor, where Vaz is doing the sprinkler with Chris.  
“You and Vaz doing well, huh?” Benny raises her eyebrows and grabs another shot, and X scrunches up her nose and nods.  
“Yeah, she’s great. Total legend. She gets a lot of my stuff, I guess.” X’s grin turns sharp, and she jabs Benny’s arm with her elbow. “You’re one to talk though! You and the captain been going steady, huh?”  
Benny splutters out half a protest, and X thrusts another shot at her.  
“Oh, come on. She’s the captain, and y’all spend half your days together with the team and the other half together in your room.” X’s eyebrows do something funny again, and that’s just not true, they have a lot of classes separate, so it’s really more like eighty percent together. Which is still… pretty incriminating, Benny realizes.  
“Fuck off,” she settles for. “We can’t all be… freaking life of the party every night.”  
“Oh, I’m sure y’all got your own party going —“ X cackles, and Benny knocks her with her elbow hard enough to spill her drink, and feels her face darken again. X looks confident, like she knows something, and Benny is too sober to talk about this, or even think about it at all. She grabs another shot.  
“Attention attention attention attention attention!” Thank god for Kelly. She did bully her way to the top of the line, and saved Benny from half-assing another comeback, and now she’s up there with Daelyn and Brock. Brock’s jacket is off, and Benny can see the outlines of her nipples through her shirt, if she looks. Which she definitely does not. Benny is a little overdressed, she sees now, but in a good way maybe.  
“Carrie Underwood, motherfuckers!” Brock announces with her lips touching the microphone. The team cheers; Mich looks up to give a ear-splitting whistle.  
Before He Cheats is the song, because of course it is. Kelly knows the verses and leads the mumble-yell until the chorus, when Brock grabs the mic. Her eyes are laughing. She is singing, very badly, “I DUG MY KEYS INTO THE SIDE — “ and grinning wide enough that it hurts to look directly at her, breaking off every two measures into peals of laughter.  
Brock is still laughing her big open room-expanding laugh when thy finish the song, and laughing when they stumble down the stairs, and still laughing when they all dump down at Benny’s couch, filling in the empty space Steph and Mich left.  
“Goddamn, Brockstar’s trying to take us to the sing offs instead of the playoffs,” Daelyn says, and Brock laughs some more, loud and unselfconscious.  
“Fuck you too, I’ll do both.” Brock and Daelyn are easy, probably the easiest among the upperclassmen, mean and jokey and the kind of friends Benny would’ve killed for at Madeira.  
“She’ll do both,” Benny echoes, a second too late, and Brock turns her whole drunk blinding lit up LED face on her and grins so big it hurts to look.  
“Benny gets it,” Brock drawls, and drops an arm around Benny to squeeze her shoulder, and Benny lets herself stare into the sun for another minute. Brock’s leg is pressing up against Benny’s now, and the contact feels real nice, her jeans on Benny’s skin, her arm on Benny’s neck, her hand on Benny's shoulder. It’s important to take stock of these things. Just like on the field, when you’ve gotta know where the ball is and runners are, you gotta be aware.  
Benny leans into Brock, lets the alcohol light her up a bit, and Brock squeezes again.  
And then X jumps to her feet, heels scraping on the floor, unnecessarily noisy, and bodily drags Daelyn and Kelly up, hissing something at them.  
“We need… we need to get more drinks,” Daelyn says to Brock. Her voice is tightly bubbly, like she’s telling a joke. “We’ll be gone for a while. A long, long —“ Kelly knocks DP in the shoulder when she gets up, and thankfully they all get out without any more snarky comments.  
It’s weird, if Benny thinks about it, so she tries not to. Gets out a giggle. “What was that even about?”  
“I dunno, man, I dunno.” Brock squeezes her in again, and Benny lets her head fall to Brocks shoulder. Going steady, X laughs in her head, and Benny tries to bring herself to care enough to separate, and can’t.  
They watch the half-assed dancing people go by and by and by, through a few songs. Brock is quiet, and that’s no good when they’re out, normally means she’s really tired, and it’s not even eleven. So Benny looks for something, something to jumpstart —  
“Sugar banana, want another?” Some guy in a hawaiian shirt is dancing with a gorgeous Kappa girl, and — he did just call her that. Seriously, unironically, called a girl sugar banana. Benny elbows Brock.  
“Did you hear that?” she snorts, quiet, trying to keep it together. “Sugar banana?”  
Brock raises her eyebrows, and the girl says something, and — damn this guy must be smashed because he says it again. “Sure thing, sugar banana,” as he’s turning around. They walk by, and Benny picks her head up to make incredulous eye contact with Brock, and her face is also can-you-believe-this.  
So it’s not Benny’s fault when she starts into hysterics the second the couple pass them. Laughing is so unfairly easy with Brock, and the— sugar banana — it is just so fucking funny. Brock is squeezing tight on her shoulder and laughing unaware with her whole mouth open and her nose scrunched up, and Benny’s eyes are literally watering. Sugar banana — it is so fucking hysterical.  
The drink brigade passes by, and X gives Benny a once-over, which sets her off again, which makes Brock dissolve.  
“Sugar banana…” Benny wheezes between laughs, and this is definitely the funniest thing that’s ever happened to anyone, ever. “Could you imagine — if you were with a guy — and he—“  
“I don’t see — see the issue, honeysuckle,” Brock says, and — did she call Benny that? Her eyes are sharp again, and she is so on. Once Benny can stop laughing long enough to breathe — she’s on.  
“No issue, flower doll.”  
“Cinnamon baby.”  
“Angelhair.”  
“Babygirl.” and— that’s so not original, or funny, but it gets Benny breathless anyways, involuntarily lighting up and blushing and maybe pressing her leg extra hard against bro’s just to feel the warmth of contact.  
“That’s not even — good,” Benny says, trying for unimpressed, but she’s still kind of laughing and has to tilt her head up to look at Brock so the effect is probably ruined,. “Not even good, uh, sugar — pie.”  
That gets a surprised laugh from Brock, and jolts her so her leg sort of pushes Benny’s dress a little higher up her thigh. She’s just drunk enough, now, to lean into it, to let the tingly warm feeling rush through her.  
“Angel.” And that’s even worse than babygirl, but Benny’s mind is going blank now, so she just sort of looks at Brock at tries to convey how completely disappointed Benny is. It’s hard to remember to stay disappointed, though, because to do it right she has to look at Brock, and Brock’s got her tongue just poking out of her mouth waiting for Benny’s response, and her eyes are lit up. Not like normal, though, Brock’s eyes aren’t too sharp, just sort of excited, and it makes Benny. It makes Benny. It makes her so goddamn —  
"What’s on your mind?” Brock asks, quiet, half-smile. She can feel Brock’s breath on her forehead.  
“Your eyes,” Benny says, and tries not to let herself think about how she told herself she was gonna find a boy to go home with, or why she normally doesn’t try to look at Brock. “They’re different than normal. It’s cool cause they’re all big and wet and pretty, but also annoying, cause I don’t know what to do about it.”  
“Do about — my eyes?” Brock’s still not looking away.  
And this should be awkward, now, but Benny lets herself babble, slur the words together. Maybe Brock’ll know what to do about it. It must’ve happened before to someone, and if not it’ll be funny. “Yeah. I mean I know it’s not your fault, but I always get — hah — get weird about it. And it’s good, but I don’t know— what to do, I guess. So, um. Sorry.”  
“I can — less,” says Brock,  
“No,” Benny says, “It feels good.” And the last bit got out before she could think about it proper, but it’s true, even though she wishes she hasn’t said it. Now she — jesus fuck, Brock’s looking at her again, and she can feel Brock’s eyes, so she drops her own gaze to her knees and feels her cheeks burn.  
“Does it,” Brock says, and her voice is soft and light, lighter than her fingers grazing Benny’s shoulder, lighter than Benny’s stupid floaty head. Her hand suddenly feels too light, and Benny lets herself lean in, chase the touch, feel it.  
“Yeah.”  
“Can you look at me?” Her voice is heavier now, lower.  
“Yeah.” She rotates her body so she can look up properly, and make eye contact, and Brock’s eyes are fire like she’s burning under the skin. Dear god. She’s not — she doesn’t really know what she’s doing, so she tries to remember her old pastors, who had opinions on this, who had thoughts, who would’ve — but she can’t remember. Brock’s eyes are holding her to the present, a little fuzzy, a little lucid-dream.  
This is a challenge, a game, like the sugar banana nicknames, like—  
Benny has an idea.  
“Yeah,” she says again, and “okay, sweetie bear,” and laughs weirdly. Brock giggles back, and the room clicks into place again.  
“Honey bunch.”  
“Honey — banana.” That’s bad, but —  
“Angel,” Brock says again, and its not fair how that gets to Benny, but it does, and suddenly there’s not enough air in the room so she drops her mouth open to inhale, and Brock’s eyes flick down to her lips and hold there. And —it’s not more intense than eye contact exactly, but it’s a lot, and Benny takes in this shaky breath, and Brock’s eyes flash back to hers, and Benny is a moth rocking into the flame, falling, so close —  
Brock kisses her, and Benny’s whole vision goes into a kaleidoscope.  
It's just so good, consuming, warm, closed chapped lips together. Brock’s mouth isn’t even open or moving on hers, just present, and — why stop acting on instinct now, so Benny drops her mouth open and takes her hand up and presses it to Brock’s cheek. Brock makes this noise in her chest, and puts her teeth on Benny’s bottom lip, and Benny whines softly and leans into it some more.  
Dear god. It — it must be the alcohol, or the night, or something, because kissing’s never felt like this, sparking in her mouth and her stomach. She’s not doing much, really, just making these little happy noises and being kissed, and it’s doing more for her than, like, actual sex has.  
Brock pulls off, and Benny whines again, and then they’re looking at each other and she giggles. It’s — it’s not even funny, it just feels so good, and Brock runs her hand over her shoulder and Benny giggles some more.  
“You — it — it feels — “  
“Jesus, you’re drunk.” And Brock is still fire but she’s pulling away now, leaving Benny’s whole face buzzing, stupid stunned open-mouthed. “Sorry — sorry about that. Hey, Andybenny, it’s all good. Let’s get you home.”  
And it was good, it was totally good, so why’s Brock apologizing? “Why — why’re — it’s —“ She’s laughing too hard to get anything out, though, so she just leans on Brock, tries to get as much touch in as she can, as Brock shuffles her out the door.


End file.
